A bit of background:   Now to my review: I think my demo of the HifiMan RE-400 was one of the fastest purchasing decisions I have made.  Compared to the other in ears I was testing, they just sounded so "right" with a flat midrange and such natural timbres!  I have had other similarly quick demos but those mostly involve me ripping headphones off my head because of how badly coloured they are, but that is another story.  RE-400's were clearly the most faithful earphones I had heard that day regardless of price (I had listened some earphones...

In the months leading up to the release of the EF-6, I was considering the few options available for amplifying the HE-6, there is basically speaker amplifyers and a few pre-amplifiers designed to power the AKG K-1000, which was prior to the HE-6 the most notoriously difficult headphone to drive on the market.  A few things stood out about the EF-6, there was the handsome good looks, the speaker amplifier style case with large heatsinks on either side designed to cool the discrete, class-A biased output stages, all the way to 5 WPC into 50 Ohms...

Thanks to WNBC for his review, I am in complete agreement with most of the points he makes, however I will put my experience in my own words.  Trevor, who runs Norse is completely professional to deal with, as well as clearly dedicated to creating some of the most natural and transparent and beautifully crafted cables that can be found at any price.  He is generous with his time and willing to tailor his creations in any way possible to your aesthetic preferences.  I cannot possibly forsee an experience as a customer which would surpass commissioning...

Please excuse my inexperience in reviewing audio gear - however I wish to contribute what I can to information on this product.   First a bit of background - I previously came from sony ex700, earsonics sm3, and HifiMan reZERO.  es5 is my first custom, and the closest earphone I have heard to it is the earsonics SM3 which I will be using as the basis for comparison in many areas.   Starting with bass, the quality is quite good, impact is moderate and speed keeps up quite well also, but it does not seem as tight as bass on reZERO, but definitely...

These are quite a nice sounding headphone for compressed music or bad sources.    They are very smooth, balanced, if slightly grainy in sound at first, but later smooth out.   Compared to high end earphones they sound a little muddy, but if the mp3 is low quality this wont matter.  These don't have much bass or treble extension, official frequency response claims are nothing like what you hear - and a completely misleading form of data.   These are decent don't get me wrong, but nowhere near the top earphones from Westone, Shure etc.  ...

This review will likely be all but redundant soon, as Sony seems to be constantly re-branding its earphones.  But I believe these are still available, and relatively good value.   They have excellent clarity, but not much soundstage.  Separation is quite adequate.   These headphones have great and natural bass impact, a smooth midrange, and a horrible sibilant lower treble.  The upper treble is actually quite good, if not great for the price.   Basically once you EQ off the sibilance, there is little treble left.  Sony engineers must...

These were my first hi-fi close headphones, moving from Sony mdr-v700DJ (yuck).  I use these mostly for heavy metal for reference.   Firstly, bass is tight and punchy, at least as fast as Grados, but not as fast as k701 (is anything?) but doesn't have quite enough impact in the lower bass.   Isolation is great, no sound leaks out, and not much in.  Comfort similarly is good, they are light and don't threaten to fall off if you lean over - thats a good thing right?   They are not what I would call dark, not compared to ah-ad2000 or Shure...

This really is a personal, subjective review, but hopefully you can learn something from it.   I really shouldn't have bought these headphones, as it is well publicised that these are analytical, and possibly dry; however the problem is to understand how you will subjectively respond to something dry and analytical (or what to expect musically.)   What do these headphones do for music?  They bring out subtle details in the texture of the sound (as opposed to the tonality) as well as highlighting the timing/rhythmic variations with great...